Salmon Patties Spark Miracles…by Lisa Harmon September 11, 2008

The Brothers Grin, concentrating. That was 21 weeks ago!! They were so small and smushy then…

Still no new camera (can I go outside and have a fit?), but this is a good pic of the two actually paying attention. Sometimes that happens! It happened again, as you will read later. Of course, it took meat then and it takes meat now…

I’ve met some remarkable people through this blog. One of the best posts I’ve read in a long time is at http://hearingelmo.wordpress.com/ In addition to the raw courage and optimism, it was just so well written. Loving to write how I do, the way she made perfect use of a symbol as an allegory just lit my literary fire! I think she’s an inspiring person, myself.

Also I met another Great Dane SD trainer, with dump trucks of knowledge about the Americans with Disabilities Act and state laws concerning access. My orbit of the world is apparently far enough out to not even have known that there are proposed size restrictions for service animals, or that some states contest medical alerting as a service animal task. (Huh? Is it me or is that ridiculous?) I hope she keeps telling me this stuff, so I can “get it right” when I write something about the ADA and state laws.

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Tuesday Kenai didn’t go out to run at all—already broke my steadfast promise. But it was because of his legs, and not my fatigue or anything else. That morning when we got up, he was laying on his bed, wimpering, and when I asked what was wrong, he held up his back leg and whined. He was stiff legging around like an old fart, and chewing himself. Once again, it wasn’t the bones that bothered him, it was the long tendons he kept going after.

Doesn’t matter what it was, he was in pain, and a fair amount of it to be complaining. So after his breakfast, on went the traumeel liniment, and in went one of his brother’s pain pills. It’s less than half strength for his weight (120 lbs), but still enough for relief. After about 20 minutes, he was feeling way too good, wanting to run about and play. No dice, big buddy, it was rest and gentle walking.

It’s not like he didn’t have entertainment. He helped me make some fruit bread, my version of jazzed up raisin bread. A snoot on the counter got some flour in his nose and gave his majesty the sneezes, so he went back to sniffing through the pantry where the Ritz crackers are.

I showed him how the dust pan worked, though he was more interested in making it un-work. He located each bone chip on the living room rug, while I took them away and dropped them in the little trashcan. He wanted to make the trashcan un-work, too. Dang that foot is big…

We also had a snooze, though my bed was a smidgen too hard for his comfort that day. (I don’t like the firmness either—so much for the miraculous pain relieving memory foam). Personally, I would swap beds with him, except he’d sleep on the loveseat all night.

Anyone with fibromyalgia thinking a memory foam mattress would be good: DON’T. Maybe a couple foam toppers, but I’m going back to laying two down comforters over the mattress now that it’s cooler at night. Softer is better, not waking up feeling like I slept on a concrete sidewalk.

Then we made dinner, and I found a taste more attractive to him than lamb meat, critter poop, ham bones, or trashcans. Salmon. Cracked open that can and Special K came up off his bone like it was made of porcupine quills. He made a scandalous pain in the whatsits of himself, mooching and drooling for a nibble! Self filed that brilliant discovery into the emergency recall assistance file.

His brother BB was even worse at first scent, gallopoling from across the house (he doesn’t gallop, he gallopols). Beebs has no sense of decorum at all, thank goodness. He’s funny as a sack of monkeys. The Brothers Grin stood side by side for 10 minutes, big and small, stoic and stumpy, both transfixed as I deboned and formed salmon patties to fry.

Not one nip, not one swat, not one smush did they lay on each other. Any hint of vying for position, and a simple “Ahh” while holding up a bite-worth froze them solid. My little furry pillars of salt, how nice that was. Memory foam isn’t miraculous, salmon patties are…

So Tuesday wasn’t a total loss, though he really did want/need to play. We stuck with the small stuff, and gave him the TLC moose smooch treatment. Even Mom gave him individual attention, which doesn’t happen too often. I could feel the happy vibes from him, enjoying the “Grammy rubs” and wagging a lazy arc with his tail. BB got put in place for complaining, and she came right back to Kenai.  

Wednesday morning brought a more comfortable state, so Tank’s runtime was honored. He didn’t go all out for long, and I didn’t goose him or anything, which causes goober runs. I let him walk around, sometimes calling him over for a treat. I kept the romp to 10 minutes. If I needed to I could have a 3rd outside play for a short time. Just baby his legs some, ya know?

We made a true autumn smelling bread pudding, complete with cranberries, apples, cinnamon, nutmeg and cloves after his run. It’s a special treat for Mom, who is the only one who likes bread pudding. It didn’t have the same thrill to the puppy brain as salmon, but Brown hung around our side of the island while I was making it anyway.

Then we hauled the vacuum out to my horrendously dirty car. It’s so hair covered and smelly I would be ashamed to take it somewhere to be cleaned! I can live with a certain amount of mess, but that was too awful even for me. Just about wore holes in my rubber gloves rubbing the gorgeous warm caramel hair out, and filled the whole sweeper bag!

Once clean enough, I soaked the upholstery with doggie smell neutralizer and SHUT THE DOORS. Let it steep, is my opinion. When the sun came out later, I took it outside and rolled down the windows for a steam treatment. If I have to, I can unashamedly take it to get the upholstery cleaned now.

Kenai just wandered around the garage, trotting back and forth from “stuff” to the car, being sure I was doing it right. He wasn’t ready for a nap after that, but he got one all the same. I didn’t get quite as much snoozing done as he did. I got caught up trying to figure out when I could go get a load of mulch to start my fall yard work.

Either Mom has to be home with both boys, or they have to be crated up with strict instructions for Mike to just ignore all the crying—no yelling, no going near them, no letting one out. It would be nice if Mom went with me, to help me get the tarp over the load.

I can’t climb and crawl about as well as I used to. It can take me weeks to spread a load of mulch these days, too. A half ton truck is hard to cover without the climb and crawl, espcially considering the guys in the loader mound it over like a plate at a buffet. Ever see that, those small plates carrying 3,000 pounds of food? Done that myself, back in my teenage college days. When Red Lobster has their all you can eat shrimp specials, I make it a profit draining affair.

Anyway, I want that mulch. I want to start taking back my front yard again. I started most of the perennials from seed, I worked like a fool to amend the native red clay until it’s a dark rich loam, I planted nearly every shrub and flower in it, I watered it with sweat, and I want it back. I broke my idjut parts making it pretty, so that makes it mine, right?

That’s my fall and winter job: cleaning up, weeding, and mulching the front ½ acre. Kenai will enjoy the outdoor time it will take, too. Might have to have leashed reminders of the flowerbed boundaries, and to stop at the driveway, but he’ll like the back to nature program! I know better than to take him out front first, though—empty the rocket boosters in the field before trying the front yard.

We did have one small ride in Mom’s not soaking wet inside car. No big deal really, just a couple packs of smokes, a gallon of milk, and a fountain drink. Sasquatch didn’t go in with me since I needed both hands. He’s not quite up to a reliable handless heel when there’s lots of people around.

But he got to go for a ride. I really need to get him out and working Friday. He hasn’t been for an outing since last Friday, which isn’t enough. I wanted to settle him down some first, and that seems to have happened. So it’s back to work soon, Sergeant Kenai, marching along.